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clouding someone's ability to make sound decisions by inducing pleasure, guilt

or anger, ethos can help steer an exchange towards a rational and mutually
beneficial end by keeping the parties minds active and planning. Efficiency,

effectiveness, and innovation can all be hindered by excess emotion. Logos

can often persuade with less emotional confusion.

Problems with Logos

Logos presents two particular problems that we will focus on exclusively:
1. Its success depends largely on the actual logic of your deductions.

2. It assumes that people can and will follow the logic of your argumentation.

If you focus on the "logic" of your argument as your primary means of persuasion,

then you are assuming that the person whom you are addressing can follow your

train of thought and is equally concerned with logical reasoning. However, even given
a perfect, logic-loving audience, your communication will only be as persuasive as

your arguments are logical. In general, this is probably a good thing—providing you

have a good case and sound positions. But, if you are trying to convince someone of
something that is not easily "deduced," or if you do not have confidence in your

arguments, then other means of persuasion might be necessary. (In such a case,

however, it might be wise to reconsider your position anyway.)

The second problem with logos is that the perfect, logic-loving audience probably
does not exist. People communicate in different ways and some people are simply

more emotional than others. In a large audience there are bound to be those persons

that prefer a more personal, emotional approach. This is not necessarily wrong;
effective communicators cater to the needs of different types of people.

Consider this: if it is possible that pathos focuses too much on emotion for reliable
professional use, then it is also possible that logos focuses on emotion for reliable

professional use too little.

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